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Dabeli

Dabeli or Dhabeli is the Gujarati cousin of Mumbai’s vada pav. If you visit the Gujarati dominant areas in Mumbai like Vile Parle you will come across more dabeli street vendors than vada pav. When we lived in Mumbai, I used to frequently go to Alfa (the one stop shop for ‘almost’ everything imported in Mumbai during the early 2000s) for shopping and on those days dabeli was my main meal.

Unlike vada-pav, dabeli is sweet and spicy and crunchy which makes it my personal favourite between the two. The pomegranate pearls, chutneys, onions and peanuts all come together to add flavour and a unique texture to the potato mix.

Sometime ago, when I was peeling a pomegranate, Sikander said ‘why don’t you try making dabeli?’. I found this recipe on Tarla Dalal’s website, which I more or less followed with minor variations for ingredients.